Preventive/General Dentistry

Dentures

When you are missing all of your natural teeth, full dentures will replace the missing teeth and restore your smile. When missing teeth, your facial muscles are not supported and will begin to sag, making you look much older. Dentures will provide support for your facial muscles as well as make it easier to eat, speak and smile.

When wearing full dentures, you still must take good care of your mouth. Brush your gums, tongue and palate every morning with a soft-bristled brush before you insert your dentures to stimulate circulation in your tissues and help remove plaque.

If you are missing some but not all of your teeth a partial denture can be used to replace the natural missing teeth. Removable partial dentures usually consist of replacement teeth attached to pink or gum-colored plastic bases, which are connected by a metal framework.

Sealants

Thanks to fluoride, dental sealants and better dental habits, fifty percent of school-age children now have no cavities. Alexandria Old Town Dental provides quality, effective dental sealants for your children’s teeth that will protect them from the normal causes of cavities.

Mouth Guards

For our young athlete patients we offer custom mouth guards in lots of cool colors. The custom mouth guards fit comfortably over your child’s teeth to protect them from trauma, breakage, or loss during contact sports such as football, basketball or soccer.

Neuromuscular

Jaw Pain (TMJ problems and cures) Do you have headaches, neck aches, clicking jaws, limited opening range of the jaw or ringing in the ears? It may be TMJ Syndrome. Some 60 million Americans have TMJS. Simply put, TMJS is the syndrome that happens when the muscles in the jaw and the temporomandibular joint are out of alignment or misaligned, causing problems when chewing. In simpler terms, the ligaments, muscles, bones and joints do not line up, thereby causing pain. Symptoms of TMJ • clicking, popping or grating sound when opening or closing the mouth • headaches and/or dizziness • tenderness in jaw muscles • earache • jaws that sometimes lock open when yawning or if mouth is held open • spasm or cramps in the jaw area Talk to us if you want to stop jaw and headache pain before it starts. Our treatment includes no pills, no shots, no surgery, and no side effects. We can treat these problems because they are most likely caused by clenching your teeth when you’re sleeping and occasionally throughout the day. When you clench your teeth you use some of the strongest muscles in your body. These muscles can cause morning headaches and tension headaches, and even damage surrounding joints, teeth, and other muscles. The high-intensity contractions of these powerful muscles become painful and the forces generated cause pain in surrounding tissues, joints, and other muscles. By reducing the intensity of the clenching, you’re effectively minimizing the source of the pain.

TENS Unit

TENS units are small devices that are battery operated and provide small electrical impulses to painful areas. TENS stand for “transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.”

Electrodes (sticky patches) are attached to the skin and the electrical impulses are delivered to underlying nerves and muscles.

The TENS unit works in two ways:

The electrical stimulation from the TENS unit can actually block the pain signal being sent from the nerves to the brain. When the pain signal is blocked, the pain is not felt.

Naturally, our bodies have a chemical release response to pain called endorphins. The electrical stimulation from the TENS unit is able to activate the release of endorphins which act as a pain reliever.

Diagnostic Wax-Up

Diagnostic wax-ups are an invaluable tool our doctors use when restoring or creating a new smile for our patients.

Diagnostic wax-ups allows our doctors to evaluate occlusion (how the teeth are fitting together), determine how much reduction is needed to achieve final results and determine the appropriate size and length of restorations for a natural looking smile. This assures that our patients will not only have a beautiful smile, but one that is strong, healthy and functional.

Diagnostic wax-ups allow our patients to see what their smile will look like after the proposed treatment is finished, before treatment is even started.
Once our doctors are satisfied with the function and esthetics on the wax-up models, impressions can be taken and shared with the ceramist who will be creating the restorations. This allows the ceramist to clearly see what is expected of each restoration for a perfect fit.